


Fire and Phantoms

by Blue_Sparkle, orphan_account



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Wingfic, Wingverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-03
Updated: 2012-09-23
Packaged: 2017-11-13 10:33:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/502571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue_Sparkle/pseuds/Blue_Sparkle, https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Master and Doctor are fighting in the Time War, and at night, they visit each other in dreams without intending to. However, neither can be sure the other is real...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

He had seen the Master before, always at a great distance, and somehow he had always doubted that it was really him. He was so different from most of his previous bodies. The Doctor fought at the front, killing Daleks, protecting bases and trying to stay alive. He had little time for meeting the generals but sometimes, when he looked up, he’d see him, gliding smoothly about the battlefield, in impeccable armour and his wings shining with clean feathers.  
  
Somehow, the Doctor was glad that they didn’t meet. In a silly fit of vanity, he didn’t want to face the Master with ruffled and ash-covered wings, althoughhe was not the only one who hardly had any time for grooming them. Most of the soldiers around him hardly cared about the state of their wings, unless they had to battle in the air.  
  
Besides, the man-who-was-so-much-like-the-Master-but-wasn’t never approached him or showed any more interest in him than in any other soldier, so the Doctor assumed that it was just wishful thinking and paid no attention to him. It wasn’t likely that the Time Lords would be desperate enough to resurrect one of their most hated renegades.

It was eerily quiet after all the noise from before. The Doctor walked past the broken armours of the Daleks and among the charred forms on the ground. He could make out broken limbs and black wings, burned nearly beyond recognition, and he gazed past them apathetically - after years of that sight he could hardly bring himself to regret every single loss of life.

  
It was a beautiful evening, ironically, the Doctor’s favourite kind. It was as if the planet wanted to spite the death and destruction with nature’s best. The sunset painted everything in a brilliant red light, making it impossible to tell the dried blood from the soil and red grass.  
  
The Doctor was so distracted by the sight that he only noticed the only other living person when he came as close as 20 feet. At first he didn’t recognise the silhouette against the low sun but then he identified the broad shoulders and wings as the ones of the general he often watched when dreaming of better times.  
  
The general didn’t notice the approaching Time Lord. He just stood on the hill top, staring out at the horizon. His wings were loosely held in the wind,  and now that the Doctor had a closer look at them he noticed that they were like those of some kind of owl - impressive wings of a large bird of prey. It suited him, really. As a feather floated past the general, he reached out a hand and snatched it from the air, gazing down at it.   
  
Smoke rose from the last remaining embers and was disseminated by the wind, making it seem as if the sky was still on fire. And the Master stood there, right in the midst of death and destruction, unmoving, neither showing any sign of satisfaction from the devastation, nor woe for the dead. He acted as if nothing had happened at all, as if he couldn’t see the corpses and shells around him.  
  
And there was no doubt that this was the Master. It was him, a different body, an unusual physique, Time Lord again, but it was him. The Doctor felt something clench in his chest, right between his hearts.  
  
He had wanted to see his old enemy and love again, just once. One time would have been enough to apologize, one time with his new and gentler self, which was only too willing to stop and listen to the Master. It was one of the Doctor’s largest regrets that he didn’t have the chance for it; it would have helped him come to terms with his nearly certain death. It would have be so much easier to face death with his oldest friend and opponent.  
  
But now that the Master was actually there… How big was the chance that they would both survive this? As a foot soldier, the Doctor knew that it was not very likely he would stay alive. People who didn’t recognize him wouldn’t specifically seek him out, since they’d see him as nothing more than a pawn, but a general… A general was important. They’d go after him, assuming that the entire army would suffer from his loss. The Time Lords seemed to really need the Master and his tactical genius; they wouldn’t have resurrected their hated renegade otherwise.  
  
It made the Doctor wish to be alone for the first time in this war, now that he was there. For the first time it occurred to the Doctor that dying alone would be so much better, no matter how much he had longed for the Master to be with him before, the comfort simply wasn’t worth it.  
  
Neither Time Lord moved. The Master continued to watch the sunset, and the Doctor stared at him. They stayed there until the sun was nearly gone and the first stars started to twinkle in the distance.  The Master stretched his wings and sighed, startling the Doctor from his trance. He turned away quickly and dashed away as fast as he could, praying that the other wouldn’t acknowledge him and that his bright wings wouldn’t give away his identity.  
  
He didn’t look back to check whether the Master had seen him and he ran as fast as he could, only stopping when the sun was gone and he had finally reached his TARDIS. He dragged himself to his room, suddenly incredibly tired, and let himself fall on his bed. He pulled his pillow close and buried his face in it.  
  
And while he let himself drift into sleep and dreams of better times, he cried, sobbing, for the first time since the war had started.  
  
—-  
  
The Master was beginning to think the war was fixing him, and in a lot of ways, it was. He thrived when the environment was ordered, when he could give commands. He had power, control, a purpose. he threw his whole being into everything he did, and he swore that it made the incessant noise in his head just a little quieter.   
  
All of that poise and control shattered when he was near the Doctor, however. He knew the Doctor was on the front lines, and he had pushed that thought to the back of his mind, unable to deal with it. He kept the troops he commanded far away from the Doctor, knowing he could not handle seeing him.  
  
Sometimes, like today, it could not be avoided. The Master watched the troops fighting the Daleks, and among the gleaming of metal and the spray of blood, he saw a flash of blue. The Doctor’s blue. He cursed the Time Lords for giving the troops on the front lines songbird wings. Not all songbird wings were the dull brown of sparrows, and the Doctor had the absurd wings of a bluebird, making him ridiculously easy to see. He wondered if the Time Lords had done that on purpose, making the Doctor an easy target. That was one way to get rid of one of their least favorite renegades.  
  
The Master tried to avoid looking at him, but the blue constantly flashed in the corner of his eye, and thoughts of the Doctor would not leave his mind. He felt his carefully constructed state of mind begin to crack, and he kept his eyes closed when he could, trying to convince himself that it was just another expendable soldier with blue wings.   
  
He didn’t know how long it was before the battle ended, but he found himself alone on the battlefield now, staring out at the carnage. The beautiful sunset seemed mocking as the ashes and corpses before him glowed softly orange. His mind was telling him to return to his quarters, but he found he did not want to move just yet. Feathers and ash drifted through the air around him, and he stretched his own wings, feeling the cracking of his stiff bones as they unfolded. They had resurrected him to watch death for an eternity, it seemed. At least he was alive again. That was all he could ask for.  
  
A blue feather drifted past him, and he reached out a hand to catch it before he could stop himself. Something in his heart twisted, and he couldn’t find it in himself to seek out its source. For years, he had wanted the Doctor dead, but now, he felt as if he would break if that were to happen.   
  
He stiffened as he heard a rustle in the ashes behind him, but he could not bring himself to look behind him. He knew who it was; he could scent him even through the smell of death. At least the man was alive. The Master did not think he could face the Doctor, for he feared he’d only see a living corpse.  
  
Before the Doctor could reach out to him, he flew away, feeling the last bits of his control give way. He fought to keep himself from making a sound, and the drums were loud now, his head pounding. It was only when he returned to his quarters that he realized he was still clutching the blue feather to his chest.  
  
Without a word, he locked his door and curled up on the bed, keeping the feather close. Even though it pained him to think of the Doctor, there was a part of him that could not bear to let go.


	2. Chapter 2

The Master dreamed.

He still held the feather to his chest, and after a moment, he put it safely into his front pocket where it would not blow away. This place was quiet, and the only sound he could hear was the wind through the trees, along with the drums at the forefront of his mind. It was strange to see a forest now, after watching Gallifrey burn before him every single day. He reached up to brush his fingers against a leaf, and it felt genuine.   
  
As he walked, the forest blurred, and he could not figure out where he was. In the distance, he saw a flash of blue, and he wandered toward it, feeling drawn to it. As he drew closer, he could see that the blue was inside a giant cage, a bird cage if he was correct. He squinted and looked closer, seeing that the blue was a mass of feathers, wings if he was correct. They were definitely the wings of a person, although they were curled entirely around the person they belonged to. He gritted his teeth, for he knew those wings.  
  
It figured that he would dream of the Doctor. He wished his mind would not do this, he had to deal with enough torture during the day. It would nice to have solitude in his dreams, time away from everything that plagued him. He turned on his heel, not wanting to go near the man in the cage. If he was in a cage, he could get himself out. He always did.  
  
After a few steps, however, the Master stopped. He couldn’t leave him behind, even if it was some twisted dream version of the Doctor. Something was pulling him back, keeping him from moving away. He sighed and moved forward toward the cage, keeping his eyes on the ground and not on the blue wings. When he reached the front of the cage, he gathered the courage to look up. He could see the blue wings shaking, and the Doctor seemed to be holding himself tightly, as if caught in a nightmare. After a moment, the Master spoke.  
  
“It’s all right. I’m here.” The words were quiet, and he was not sure they had any effect. The Doctor did not stop shaking, but when the Master looked up again, he saw the Doctor’s face peeking out from behind a wing. The Master reached out a hand to him, and after a moment, the Doctor took it, seeming incredulous. The Master was still not sure how to get the Doctor out of this cage, but he was at least here, by his side.   
  
—  
  
The Doctor could tell that he was dreaming by the air. It was clear and smelled of nothing - without character or a story to tell about his surroundings, much unlike the one at home, where every intake of breath meant inhaling ashes of the battle.  
  
When he carefully opened his eyes he half wished that he was there instead. This wasn’t one of the dreams he created consciously, this one was one of the recurring nightmares he had. He scrambled to his feet as fast as he could, wings spread wide, ready to defend himself or take off.  
  
The feathers brushed against something cold and hard, sending a jolt down his spine. The Doctor curled his wings around his body protectively, half to keep them from accidentally touching it again and half to have at least some sense of security.  
  
He was in a cage again. A cage out of cold impenetrable metal and surrounded by nothing but stifling blackness. The ones who put him here, the ones whose faces he couldn’t see despite the voices clearly being there, whispering to him, blaming him for the war, for the things he had done in his younger years and couldn’t even remember.  
  
With a wretched cry the Doctor hid his face with his wings, huddling into a small ball. He had had this dream before, and there was no use to fight against it, for it would go away on its own.  
  
The Time Lords wouldn’t go away. It felt like an eternity, and the Doctor wished for someone to be there with him. The fact that he was alone made it a thousandfold worse. The faint humming of his TARDIS didn’t help either. She was close enough to reach, if not for the thin bars that separated him from his way to her.   
  
There was no help, no one would come to open the cage. He was alone. He would be for as long as the nightmare lasted, he would be when he would wake up, he would be in the war and there was nothing that could be done about it.  
  
Among the sneers and accusations of the Time Lords and the sorrowful voice of the TARDIS a new one called out to him, with gentle reassuring words. The Doctor peeked out from between his wings cautiously.  
  
A person was standing there, dressed in something that looked like the uniform of a general without the heavy armour. The Doctor couldn’t focus on his wings and face, nevertheless the man looked familiar and his presence soothed his fears. When he noticed that the man’s hand was reaching for him through the bars he didn’t hesitate to take it.  
  
He was still trapped with no way out, but the warm hand that curled around his fingers nearly made the Doctor believe that he was actually safe.  
  
He smiled, and kept holding on to the stranger until the nightmare dissolved around them, the darkness swallowing the nothingness and replacing it with the dreamworld.  
  
—  
  
When the Doctor opened his eyes again the cage was gone. The Time Lord’s voice had been replaced with the silent twittering of birds and the sound of wind rustling in the many treetops of a forest. He was lying on the floor of a small wooden cabin that seemed to be in a tree.   
  
Silvery green leaves blocked the sight from the windows and a blanket kept the opening in the ceiling shut. The Doctor smiled contented. His hand was holding someone else’s and he turned his head to see who it belonged to.  
  
The man next to him was definitely not someone he’d met before. He had soft and yet harsh features, his face relaxed in sleep. He had short dark blonde hair and he was wearing a general’s uniform. His wings, that seemed to be those of some large owl, were curled protectively around both of them.  
  
The Doctor scooted closer to him, wondering why of all people, he was dreaming of a Gallifreyan general. He didn’t care that this was a dream and the man wasn’t real anyway. What he cared for was the reassuring sensation of a warm body and soft feathers pressing against him.  
  
He closed his eyes again and smiled.


	3. Chapter 3

Two weeks passed before the Doctor had a chance to sleep again. They had been send to destroy a base on some distant asteroid, not really strategically important, but it would have become a serious problem if they hadn’t intervened. 

  
Now his wings trembled from the effort of keeping them in the air and not dragging them across the ground, his back was sore, and he didn’t even bother with caring for the minor cuts and bruises that had joined the ones from previous battles. The Doctor just let himself fall onto his bed with a wheeze, and let his TARDIS’ mournful humming lull him to sleep.  
  
Just on the edge of being conscious and asleep, he wondered where his old friends were. The general, the Master… but even if he knew, what good would that do anyway?  
  


* * *

  
It was a nightmare; even a fool would be able to tell. The overwhelming sense of fear was exactly like that of a psychic being projecting its terror in blind panic, easily recognisable by the experienced mind. Not that the screaming and laughing voices combined with total darkness and lurking shadows wasn’t enough of a tip off to the Doctor. It certainly wasn’t his own, after all he knew how those would look like and he felt strangely detached from the emotions around him.  
  
He walked in between the vague silhouettes, careful to avoid touching them. He needn’t have worried, though - none of them paid the Time Lord any mind. There was no way to tell where he was walking, all senses of direction were gone and it nearly felt like a place without gravity.  
  
The voices seemed to be coming from somewhere ahead of him, they sounded like a strange mixture of laughter and screams of pain. Walking, - gliding? - closer he realized that the shadows were moving in the same direction, gathering around something, someone in the centre of this nightmare.  
  
Someone was raging among the shadows, who seemed like they were trying to capture him. The Doctor, surprised, realized it was the general. How strange that he would dream of him twice in a row.  
  
The general was fighting the shadows off, ripping them apart with his bare hands, kicking at them and throwing powerful punches with his wings. No matter how many he defeated, a new one was always ready to take its place.  
  
Without giving it a second though the Doctor stormed past them, pushing his way through to the man. The shades parted to let him through and flinched away from his wide spread wings.  
  
The general jerked around, wings puffed up threating and his fingers clenched like claws. He actually hissed at the Doctor.  
  
“Shh, calm now, it is me, just me.” There really was no reason for this projection to remember an earlier dream, but perhaps the soothing tone would put the man at ease, who seemed more like an startled animal than a Time Lord at the moment.  
  
The tension left his shoulders then and he lowered his arms. The Doctor cautiously but firmly wrapped his arms and wings around his body. Combined with the great owlish wings and the wide shoulders of the general it was nearly impossible to actually cover him with his own songbird wings but it would do.  
  
“I am right here” the Doctor whispered as the general leaned against him. “I am not going anywhere, Master.”  
  
The name came out without him realizing, and he felt a bit of a jolt, but he was too hazy to realize what exactly was going on. He held the general as tightly as he could as the nightmare dissolved around them.  
\--  
It was the Master’s name that broke them out of the nightmare, and he was mortified to realize that it had been his own nightmare this time, not the Doctor’s. Part of him recoiled, and his first instinct was to try and push the Doctor away. If he was weak enough to be having nightmares, he should have to deal with them by himself, not with help.  
  
After a moment, however, he realized who he was trying to push away, and he just stopped and stared at the Doctor for a moment.  
  
“Of all the people to dream of,” the Master trailed off, barely paying any attention to their surroundings. “You can’t just leave me be, can you?” The Doctor scowled, taking his arms away from the Master.  
  
“It’s more like the opposite, Master. You’re the one who follows me around the universe obsessively. And now, even into my dreams. You’ve taken ‘stalker’ to a whole new level.” The Doctor harrumphed and folded his arms. “Of course, you’re not real, though. This is just my way of passing the time while I’m asleep.”  
  
“You’re the one who’s not real, Doctor. This is my dream,” the Master said, and both of them stared at each other for a moment. As the Master watched the Doctor, he noticed that for all the bravado and snark the Doctor was exuding, he was most definitely unwell. Despite how he tried to hide it, the Doctor’s hands were shaking, and his face was pale and drawn. The Master sighed, his exasperation melting away a little, replaced by concern. He took the Doctor’s hand and began to lead him away from the nightmare-scape.  
  
“Come along, Doctor. You need to rest.” Dream-Doctor or not, the Master recognized that the Doctor needed help. If somehow, the real Doctor was contacting him through his dreams, maybe the Doctor would remember him fondly. And if not? This gave the Master something to do, a distraction from the war and his nightmares.  
  
“You can’t just drag me off somewhere - “ The Doctor stopped, and his eyes widened. The Master turned his gaze to look at what the Doctor was seeing, and he saw an immense tree before them, complete with treehouse. If the Master thought it was possible, it would have most definitely been the Doctor’s dreamscape, rather than his.  
  
“A child’s house,” the Master noted, unimpressed. The Doctor scowled again, and unfurled his wings. They were battered, but still seemed functional.  
  
“No. This is my house, now.” The Doctor lifted off and flew into the treehouse, and the Master gave a frustrated sound before following him. At least this was some sort of shelter, and if they were lucky, they could stay there a while.  
  
The Master admitted that it was nice in here, but it still had a childlike garishness that threw him off. The Doctor, however, loved it. The Master watched him, realizing that he had not seen him this happy in years. He followed the Doctor around the treehouse, and finally took his arm.  
  
“You should rest, Doctor. You’re not well,” the Master said again, and this time, the Doctor nodded.  
  
“Very well. At least this place is peaceful.” When the Master caught the Doctor’s eye, there was something haunted there, and the Master felt a painful twinge in his hearts. He followed the Doctor to one of the treehouse’s rooms, and the Doctor settled himself down on a mattress in the corner.  
  
“There. I’m resting. Happy now?” The Doctor curled his wings around himself, but still seemed tense and nervous. The Master made his way over to the mattress, sitting on the other side. He briefly contemplated saying something to him; it couldn’t hurt if he wasn’t real, right?  
  
“I worry about you, Doctor,” the Master said finally. “And I want you to be all right.” He told himself that the Doctor had to be fake, that this was a dream. There was no other possibility. The Doctor looked up at him, his brow furrowing. He said nothing, but after a long while, he moved closer to the Master, and curled a wing around him, resting his head on the Master’s chest instead of on the mattress. The Master stared at him, stunned, but the Doctor simply closed his eyes and fell asleep.  
  
The Master closed his eyes, his hearts heavy. If he had had any doubts before, they were gone. This was simply a Doctor he had dreamed up.


End file.
